Jose Maravilla: Most Detailed Public-Masturbation Story Ever

We here at Hair Balls are not a squeamish lot. We make no pretensions towards being a "family newspaper." Hell, as a blog, we are not even a newspaper at all.

We are gonna go ahead and assume that the opposite is true at The Monitor, the daily paper in the Rio Grande Valley city of McAllen. And that's why we are wondering why they felt compelled to print so much excruciatingly, disgustingly vivid detail in their account of the Tuesday night arrest of 40-year-old Jose Raul Tobias Maravilla, who was hauled off after he was seen allegedly masturbating in a crowded McAllen Starbucks.

The first couple of paragraphs in the story paint about all the picture we need to see.

The first sentence pretty much says what we just wrote, the second gives the time of the offense and the address of the Starbucks and adds that "a female customer and a female employee" saw "a man touching himself inside the restaurant, according to a probable cause affidavit."

In the next paragraph, we learn that Maravilla is from Edinburg, and that's when things start to take a sharp turn into the realm of TMI.

Next, the Monitor informs us that Maravilla "allegedly opened the pant leg to his gray shorts -- which police later determined were boxer briefs -- and began touching himself in plain sight, police said."

Okay, okay, that's enough. We get it. But the, um, rising action has only just begun in the Monitor's mini-epic, which quickly gets way, way "out of hand."

Imagine dad reading the following aloud to the family at the breakfast table:

A female customer, who was sitting in front of him, stated that Maravilla kept shaking his leg and afterward grabbed a napkin and wiped his penis, which she could see. Maravilla was reportedly looking at his cell phone as he did this, police said.

Maddeningly, the report does not stipulate what images this apparently riveting cellphone contained, but we are far from done with gnarly descriptions of Maravilla's public monkey-spanking techniques.

We learn that children were present in the coffeeshop (though apparently they were unaware of Maravilla's actions), and also that Maravilla "kept his hands on his privates." Yes, hands.

And it gets worse.

The woman informed an employee who served her a pastry about the situation and she also saw Maravilla's penis, police said.

The officer who arrived at the scene noted in the report that Maravilla had visible wet spots in his briefs near his genital area. And when the officer asked the suspect to stand up in order to arrest him, Maravilla had an erection.

Talk about airing dirty laundry. And wow, a one-gun salute. And so soon after he apparently finished his earlier exertions. Again, what was on that cellphone?

The online comments are full of ideas for new Starbucks slogans but we here at Hair Balls are above all that, so if you want to read stuff like "Starbucks, Where The Customer Always Comes First," or "Starbucks: Thank You For Your Business, Come Again Soon," or anything riffing on how they serve "fresh cream" with their coffee, you'll just have to click over there.